#(( hi im working on worldbuilding again

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

random omegaverse thought:

There must be people who experience specific instinct things with indifference or boredom.

Procreative cycle coming up? "Crap, I've got plans this weekend...stupid skip weeks."

Caught an intriguing scent while walking? "But I need to get to work! Shut up brain."

Had a snap response to a distressed sound? "Who was it?! ...right, it's my day off, I can go back to sleep."

Somebody growled at them? "Kid, I'm not a rival, that's my sibling."

Super cozy cuddle session happening nearby? "I'm gonna pass tonight guys, no social battery left, maybe next time."

Group of friends heading out to flirt and check out other singles? "I'm coming with you but only to make sure you all get home safe."

Setting where fated mates or soul bonds or permanent marks are a thing? "Meh. I don't really want one or care if I ever get one."

People in the actual omegaverse would get as bored of their stuff, as we do of ours, you know? It could be interesting to see that kind of vibe in fics. Biological demands faced with all the excitement of paying bills or doing laundry or tying your shoes.

Even if that kind of energy might not drive a plot, it could be interesting to have as a contrast to the people who do have big feelings about them - good or bad.

There's the friends who can't wait til they have a pack of their own, and the one friend who isn't against it but couldn't care less. There's the group in the office who are all about scent compatibility tests and figuring out one's best match and what sprays most highlight it, and the coworker who has no intentions on putting that much effort in. There are parents who hover and protect their offspring by scenting them multiple times a day, and others who don't see what the fuss is as long as it's done in the morning.

...also: packs with introverts who show care by giving each other space. So often, closeness is depicted through physical touch and tactile affection, but comfortable silence is meaningful too. Knowing people are near, but not having to interact until you're ready. Sitting in the same room doing different things, knowing that all it takes is a "hey, look at this" to share what you're up to. People understanding and accepting each other's differing or fluctuating needs for how and when to recharge. Seeing somebody reaching out or sharing space, beyond what's their norm, as a signal of the fact that they care.

[arolesbianism]

Some concept doodles for my extremely self indulgent isat au I’ve been obsessed with lately

[larrythefloridaman]

two very different kinds of siblings

[rockheadcd]

thinking about how much roark has never truly been alone because his parents gifted him an egg for his birthday to take care of when he was a lil dude since he loved fossil mons and just dinosaurs in general so much he REALLY wanted his own buddy like dad had basti.. ramses' egg was as big as him for the longest time and took a couple of months to hatch, but he tried to take that egg just about everywhere like his lil towel cape...

and when ramses finally hatched the first thing lil rock did was throw his arms around him and proceeded to get bit because ramses wanted some fuckin lettuce but y'know what it was the best day in roark's life because his best friend was finally able to see the world with him and mom and dad were there to make sure he learned how to properly take care of him. hilariously enough, it didn't take long for ramses to be able to listen to either parent, and he still will obey requests from byron to this day as well. as long as roark trusts a person, ramses is willing and able to as well ( it's easier than trying to think about it himself ).

roark really never felt loneliness even when asago fell ill and wasn't able to keep up with him as he was heading into grade 4 and 5, but ramses was there by his side. children were easy to distract when there was something equally energetic to occupy their time in the outdoors—and when the outdoors was a whole forest and steelix tunnels that have since been rebranded as caves, it was far too easy to escape in the most literal sense ( and it's not like either of them truly understood the gravity of the situation, for asago would do anything to be herself with her only son ). even the few times roark has played with volkner during league administration meetings did he not really understand the concept of loneliness, having figured he was shy for shyness sake, unaware of the strained relationship volk and ira had. ramses was happy to play with the both of them, no less. volk wasn't lonely with both of them there, right?

truly, roark didn't really understand until asago passed. he was alone quite a bit, but he wasn't lonely. he had his best buddy. he still had asago's team. he had some of byron's with him at home. basti, as far as he was concerned, was a timeless artifact and she would be around for his whole life. and ramses was still there, he was finally taller than him, and they were inseparable. it was quieter in that period of his life. he figured that was part of loneliness. he wasn't wrong, but he had a routine that wasn't terribly affected by the loss. he was sad, because he missed her, but he was beginning to understand it was more than just a lack of noise at home.

sits down and puts my head in my hands. all that constant buffering never really left him process the survivor's guilt because he rarely had the chance to be alone long enough to get through the long-standing damage, just the short, painful worst of it. he took after and modeled himself after his dad, 'mons and all, occupations and all, because he figured he was fine with what he was surrounded by ( as opposed to pretend, he didn't pretend he was fine, he genuinely thought he was fine ), because they have always been there. and then volk happens and he finds a reason to want to offer all of that to someone. and then he's gone, missing, when that normalcy is there, and it all comes back tenfold. he went too many years feeling fine and that the missing pieces were just a part of life and paying less and less mind to it ( liar, his habits are an exact reflection of the ways he hurt ), and suddenly he can't keep up and for once he feels so, so lonely. it's silence, it's the inability to connect without the confirmation he's on the other end. volk may as well have been his first real, personal connection to someone that wasn't his family and it hurt for so long he really has no idea he managed for a decade the first time around. this boy can fit so many repressed feefees and fears because he knows what's next. he doesn't know what he's going to do when it's byron. he really doesn't know what to do when it's ramses ( he refuses to think about a life without his first buddy ).

[royalreef]

       How are you supposed to be a good ruler if your subjects don’t want to fuck you?

[hematocephalus]

⁽⁠⁽⁠ଘ⁠(⁠ ⁠ˊ⁠ᵕ⁠ˋ⁠ ⁠)⁠ଓ⁠⁾⁠⁾

[modpoppy]

enamored by the character acting in the orville i just love how everyone is just so much is friends

[proxycrit]

I love your au!!! I love how the hylian duo look like gremlins, I LOVE the expressions and sass constantly and the changes to the lore, the worldbuilding and also the emotions (OUCH). I love their relationship with purah and each other and the new champions. I love the depth you gave Yona and her relationship with Sidon and Mipha. I love how link feels comfortable talking to sidon in addition to sign, I don't know if he does that with anyone else but Zelda unless its absolutely necessary (eg: just launched out a cannon and is paragliding down, so hands are busy) (side note: i love how much of an adrenalin junky/gremlin he is!!)

I do got a few questions! Will the pair get the sheikah slate again (so say link has the slate and zelda the pad), and can both slates do the warping and item storage (food, ingredients, armor, weapons, etc) (if so: no WONDER link was so upset! His collection!)

Does link have access to the ultrahand abilities (ik you said not The ultrahand, but what about fuse or ascend or rewind etc?) Where is the mastersword??

Does Link still have the champions' abilities, or did he lose those when their spirits moved on at the end of botw?

I know these are a lot of questions but I can't stop thinking about it!! The last few updates sent me back rereading the whole au and now its just vibrating in my head and giving me no piece

This is long and rambly, just know I am very much enjoying this au! Its silly and fun and touching and cute. Thank you for working on it!!

Oo some notes (also ty for circling my au haha im glad other people fixate like i do)

(Prewarning— i did not finish totk despite putting triple hours in it, so a lot of this story is being written while playing, though i know the big broad strokes thanks to cultural osmosis and video essays. A lot of Familiar Familiar builds from my playthrough with BOTW over TOTK, so the sheikah influence is significantly stronger and I will always choose botw characterization over totk characterization as a result.)

That aside

1. Sheikah slate’s dead. Rest in pieces, link’s rare collectable korok poop. Purah’s extracting as much data as she can to put on the purah pad but you can see the dread in her eyes whenever she has to tell link resurrection is not possible.

2. No idea about the zonai arm powers yet— im thinking about ascend, but the longer i go through this story the less likely ill hand it to him just due to immersion breakage. He and zelda will be getting sheikah gadgets from purah though! Maybe ill have a scene of him wandering through the sky island shrines, but without zelda warning rauru he and sonia wouldnt have prepared anything for the hero of the future. (But i DO love ascension and fuse. Lowkey dislike the building mechanics from a concept art pov because the green glue makes me want to cry, but it’s FINE i GUESS)

2b. Master sword’s chilling in korok forest. Link put it back in this au because of Reasons (part of his and zelda’s characterization in this au is to discard their past roles and embrace the present, not as knight and princess but as hero and researcher. They both have to face the reality those roles aren’t dead, but it’s a work in progress. I may also never address it. This “one off hehe lemme draw some guys” idea quickly spiraled into a web comic series so apologies for the vagueness, because i too am watching them adventure with dread and awe and i don’t know where they’ll go with it. They literally write themselves.

3. Rip champions, their ghosts are Gone (but their influence remains. You go mipha, keep haunting the narrative girl, i love you)

I know that some of these story notes don’t quite match up to what totk states is stone cold canon, but that’s the joy of fan work! Anyways sorry for folks who i have NOT answered asks of— i have a lot of them and I’m much better at the drawing and writing part then the socialization aspect (please feel free to peak in to my zoo enclosure ever so often though. I need the enrichment)

[dottores]

HELIOTROPES

pairing: dottore x fem!reader & segments

summary: the gods were sick and twisted. for five hundred years, he believed he was fated to be alone. he had long accepted it—embraced it, even. that is, until a midwinter night when that elusive red thread finally appeared on his finger. but as much as he wants to ignore it, the pull of a soulmate simply cannot be ignored.

genre: soulmate au, canon compliant for the most part

warnings: fem!reader, worldbuilding for snezhnaya & fatui, mentions of past prostituion (not dottore or reader), implication of reader being slapped and getting hurt (not badly)

notes: i dont think u guys understand how much fun im having introducing the segments sobs. adhufsdiuf i might make a little reference sheet for them and attach it to masterlist if u guys want

JOY

Mutiny. 

He had been dealing with mutiny for five years. He should have expected that the Iota segment wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut. He should have sewn it shut. In a matter of a week, every single one of the segments knew that their red thread had finally appeared. In a matter of a month, every single one of the segments had abandoned their projects to return to Dottore’s estate in Snezhnaya and Dottore was fed up. 

This was exactly what he didn’t want to happen. He knew his segments because they were him, and he knew that as soon as they found out, they would be on their way back to Snezhnaya to find out if it was true for themselves. He had half a mind to deactivate every single one of them but he figured that even if he did that and recreated them, it would just be the same issue all over again and a massive waste of resources because the segments would not change--it was why they were created, to preserve his mentality at different years.

It did not take long for the older segments to put together what Dottore was planning on doing with the red thread and their soulmate and they were not happy about it. 

Dottore didn’t think he had a single day for himself in the past five years. The segments were relentless, offering to help with his research. Two sets of eyes are better than one, they would say, but Dottore knew they were full of shit. Dottore had always valued his independence highly, even as a child. There was no way that they all suddenly wanted to work with him at any given moment after years of convincing him that they were perfectly capable of running research without his supervision. They were using it as an excuse to keep an eye on him, to make sure that he didn’t make any progress on figuring out how to sever the thread, and Dottore was livid over it. 

Every day, a different segment was waiting for him at his lab or in the library, pressing him to work on a variety of different projects--none being research on the red thread, of course. And to Dottore’s absolute frustration, his segments were as manipulative and intelligent as him, so whenever he tried to brush them off to do as he pleased, he was met with snide comments about so much for not letting their soulmate get in the way of their research. 

He had backed himself into a corner, and it was no one’s fault but his own. 

Dottore sighed as he flipped through one of Epsilon’s reports. 

Ley line outcrops sprouting up more often in Avidya forest.

Possible roots in Dragonspine breaking the surface? Does Irminsul grow upside down? 

Upside down, Dottore pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to think. Could it be growing in the Abyss, and the roots are traveling up through the earth past the surface? 

How would that even work? Could the Abyss sustain life? Does the Irminsul tree even count as life? 

One of his hands slid down his face, rubbing at his mouth as he tried to piece together the puzzle laid out before him. He would have to talk to the Balladeer. The Sixth was the one that Pierro frequently sent on missions down in the Abyss, if anyone knew more about it, it would be him… or Pierro himself, but Dottore did not necessarily want to go out of his way to talk to Pierro because it usually ended in him being sent on another mission.

“Let us go looking for them.” 

It was Rho again, this time, standing at the door to Dottore’s lab. He exhaled, dragging his gaze up from the papers to the segment. Once he was acknowledged, Rho stepped into the room and Dottore raised his eyebrows waiting for him to continue. Rho looked pointedly at Dottore’s thumb, Dottore just shook his head once he realized what Rho was referring to, turning around to prepare a burner. 

“You would deny the younger segments time with our soulmate? Deny them the experience of actually knowing their soulmate while they are the same age?” Rho pressed, drawing closer to Dottore. Dottore looked at Rho over his shoulder, warning him: don’t you dare come closer. Rho pressed his lips together, stopping midstep. “It’s been five years since the thread appeared, they are already five years older than Kappa. They’re the same age as Iota. Soon they’ll be older than him, and Gamma, you know how Gamma-”

“There is no way to find them,” Dottore dismissed. “Get back to work.”

“Iota has been hysterical for days, Gamma is so anxious that he can barely focus on his research. Neither of them had ever given up hope that our soulmate would appear and you’re going to refuse-”

“How do you intend for me to find them?” Dottore was getting irritated. Never had he dealt with so much insubordination from his segments until this cursed red thread had shown up. “Follow the string? We both know that’s not possible. There will be no clues for another five years, at least, and ten years is more likely.”

Rho was frustrated, Dottore could tell from the way the segment was clenching and unclenching his jaw rapidly. Dottore couldn’t bring himself to care because quite frankly, he was frustrated. He could feel the emotions of each segment, of course he knew Gamma was anxious, of course he knew Iota was hysterical. He could feel his anxiety, he could feel his hysteria. He could feel Zeta’s hope and Theta’s rage. He could feel Delta’s stress and Epsilon’s curiosity. He could feel Lambda’s indifference and he could feel every single one of his own emotions so intensely that he wanted to rip out his own hair. 

He was not used to it. Even after five years, he was not used to it. He had gone centuries feeling little to nothing and he felt overwhelmed--he couldn’t figure out how to deal with this in an efficient manner and over the past week, it just seemed to be getting worse.

“We can go in the general direction,” Rho finally responded and Dottore only shook his head, closing his eyes. 

He felt tired, he felt so tired all of a sudden and he wasn’t sure why--he had never felt so tired so abruptly before. He wondered if the whole situation was finally starting to set in, five years later. None of them had the nerve to confront him about this before now. 

“Good luck with that,” Dottore said dryly, “All of Teyvat is south of us, you’ll have six whole nations to search.”

“You could help,” Rho snapped, Dottore could see his segment’s temper waning, and he could feel his own thinning. “Instead of trying to…”

He thought maybe it was more than just being tired over the situation. 

He exhaled carefully, fingers pressing hard into the cool metal table beneath his hand. His body felt exhausted, as if he had been forced into spars with the Captain again. His chest felt heavy and his mind felt sluggish, and it was so sudden. If Dottore didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought one of his segments had the audacity to try to drug him.

Rho was still talking, but Dottore was now distracted, trying to figure out what was wrong with himself before Rho could take advantage of the apparent weakness to push him even more. His gaze drifted up to the vents of his lab, filtering the air from some of the more dangerous chemicals that he worked with in his experiments. 

Had they failed? 

No, Rho would be feeling it as well. 

Unless it was only affecting him because he’s been in the room longer. 

Even then, Dottore’s body was created to withstand what would take down the average human’s body. Chemicals should not be enough to make him feel like this. It had to be something else.

It had to be something else. 

But what?

Dottore didn’t know and the longer he dwelled on the issue, the more his body betrayed him. Rho was beginning to realize something was wrong, he could tell from the way his voice was becoming slower, from the way his brows were furrowing as he observed Dottore. 

What was-

The thread. Dottore’s gaze drifted down to his thumb as the thread vibrated--once, twice, three times, the daily goodnight that he had become familiar with. Every night, without fail, once the sun began to fall, his soulmate would flick the thread, he had become accustomed to it in a way that he shouldn’t have. His gaze drew to the side, to the window of his lab where the sun began to set over the snowy hills in the distance. 

He hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. 

“It’s been five years since the thread appeared,” Rho had reminded him. 

Five years. His soulmate would have turned ten years old recently. 

The third stage: emotions, pains, they would be shared between the two soulmates—begins once both soulmates have reached the age of ten.

At once, all of the puzzle pieces joined together before his eyes--the tiredness, the influx of emotions that did not belong to him or one of his segments, the odd, momentary pains that would prick his hands and knees. They were not his emotions or his pain. It was not his fatigue. 

It was his soulmate’s.

Dottore was many things--a scholar and a Harbinger, but above all, he was a fool and suddenly, a very, very mortal one at that. 

Some people thought it romantic that Celestia prevented soulmates from finding one another before their fated meeting. Dottore thought it was absurd—especially because he had to deal with… this.

The Iota segment was sobbing, curled in on himself on the ground, babbling about how their string was gone and their soulmate was dead. Dottore wondered if he should be embarrassed, staring at the younger version of himself, unimpressed and unmoved by the outburst, arms crossed at his chest as people in the city began to look their way--never for too long, because they knew exactly what the symbols that adorned their cloaks meant, but long enough that it was beginning to tickle his nerves.

The Delta and Gamma segments were trying to calm him down, telling him that no, their soulmate was still alive and yes, the thread was still there--Iota just couldn’t see it because it disappeared from his view. Celestia’s oh so convenient way of stopping soulmates from tracking each other down before they were meant to meet each other. 

Dottore shook his head, exasperated when all attempts at soothing Iota failed. This was exactly why he didn’t like bringing his segments out with him, it always became some sort of project. Dottore’s lips twisted into a frown as he contemplated just leaving them to continue further into the city, in the direction of the old building that was rumored to be the base of the new black market network spreading throughout the Snezhnayan capital, encroaching on the territory of the organization that had been working with the aristocrats and the Fatui for decades to keep the economy stable.

Dottore was the one sent to shut it down before it got out of hand, sent to defend their ‘partners’... and perhaps get a few important figures in their debt. He hadn’t necessarily wanted to go but he figured while he was out, he could get Gamma the supplies he had been looking for before he had started having a meltdown over their soulmate, but once Iota found out that Gamma was joining him, Iota insisted on coming along… and since Iota was tagging along, Delta demanded on coming too, not one to let the ten-year-old segment out of his sight for long. 

Dottore supposed it was for the best, he could leave the other two to handle the outburst while he went to shut down the new competition. 

The wind was brisk against his skin as he made his way down the dirt roads, small vendors lined the streets, their stands dusted with snow, the shop owners bundled beneath heavy cloaks and furs. None of them dared to try to sell their products to him--instead, he only received wary glances and hushed whispers as he passed by. 

The people of Snezhnaya did not trust the Fatui. They had no love left for the Tsaritsa and her followers, placing all of their faith in the old aristocratic families of their motherland instead. The noble families kept the coffers full and homes warm in the dead of winter where their Archon had abandoned them and the Fatui cared for naught but their own goals and ambitions. 

There was some truth behind their reasoning, Dottore acknowledged as he turned down the last side street. The Tsaritsa did abandon her people to prepare for the war against Celestia, even if it was for their own good in the long run, and the Fatui did only really care for their own goals… or at least Dottore did. Capitano, Arlecchino, Pulcinella and Signora, they all had varying degrees of sympathy for the common folk but it didn’t matter because when it came down to it, they would always put the downfall of the gods first. 

And that disconnect would always keep the aristocrats a level above the Fatui when it comes to good relations with the civilians. It was none of Dottore’s business, he didn’t handle politics--that was up to Pulcinella to try to fix--but it was beginning to affect his research. His funding was decreasing rapidly, and between that and dealing with his segments and the influx of emotions from his soulmate, Dottore was at his wits end.

His soulmate was an anxious little thing. He had learned how to differentiate between which emotions were coming from his segments and which were coming from them. There wasn’t much he felt on their end besides nervousness and tiredness at night and as frustrating as it was, he could not close off their emotions like he could with his segments. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the waves of drowsiness and apprehension, they always managed to trounce him at the most inopportune times. 

But it was midday now, so he shouldn’t be at risk of any unwelcome sensations. He figured it was the best time to confront their new enemies.

Dottore exhaled as he finally reached the old building—it was worn down, the wood of the door split down the middle. He was not sure what he was expecting but it was not this.

He frowned as he pushed the door open, bracing himself for a group of enemies inside only to find an empty, unfurnished room. His frown deepened, gaze darting around as he tried to figure out if this was some sort of trap or if the place had been abandoned… and if it had been abandoned, that means the Fatui had a rat to sniff out. 

… But the place didn’t seem to be abandoned. In fact, it looked as if someone was living there. Water was boiling on a stove in the corner of the room, there was a half-eaten meal on a dingy kitchen table, and on the opposite side of the room, there was a bed with half-made sheets.

He wondered if the location he was given was wrong because this place appeared to be a refuge for a homeless person. 

There was a door at the end of the room with a dim light glowing from beneath and Dottore decided he better at least try to get some answers as to the actual location of the base before heading out, lest he deal with the Jester’s displeasure again. 

A thin layer of snow coated parts of the hardwood floor, having trespassed through the split roof above, crunching beneath his boot as he approached the door. He didn’t waste a second when he got to the door, pushing it open hard—perhaps too hard, considering it nearly came off the hinges as it slammed into the wall.

Dottore’s eyes narrowed on the only figure in the room. A young man, no older than nineteen or twenty, leaped to his feet, violet eyes unfocused and wild at Dottore’s arrival. He was tall and thin, too thin, dark hair poorly kempt. He would have brushed him off as another homeless citizen of Snezhnaya, to be dead as soon as the first blizzard of the winter hit… but Dottore hesitated, noting the inked quill in his hand, and the parchment on the desk he was sitting at.

Two long strides and Dottore was at the desk, snatching the parchment before the man could react. His eyes scanned the words rapidly, reading the list of requested goods, and it didn’t take long for him to put together what was happening.

He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed, “Where are the rest of your men?”

The man did not respond.

“I advise you to answer my question lest you find yourself without your head,” Dottore said dryly, placing the parchment back down and looking up at the man, who he could only assume was running the competing market.

“There are no men.” The response was clipped and cold, Dottore’s eyes trailed down to where jagged nails were digging into his palms—he was scared, trying to hide it. Good. “Only me.”

“Only you?” Dottore asked, amused. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care if you believe it,” the man retorted.

“If you care about your life, you’ll care about what I believe,” Dottore countered, watching the way the man stiffened at his words. 

“Does it matter what you believe, or if I care about my life?” the man asked, voice quickly. “Or will I die anyway?”

Dottore smiled thinly, “I haven’t decided yet.”

The man looked frustrated. Dottore was unbothered, waiting for him to speak--the following silence was cold, tense. Dottore liked to believe he was a patient man but he was also a man who did not like his time being wasted. 

One man causing such a ruckus amongst their partners… he considered the possibility of it actually being true. He didn’t think there was any chance of it, logically. The original organization has controlled Snezhnaya’s economy for centuries now--it was well embedded in society, the aristocrats depended on it, the civilians depended on it, the Fatui depended on it. 

One man-

“The people aren’t as fond of the aristocrats as everybody thinks. They’re just the only option when the Fatui is the alternative,” the man finally said, “and it doesn’t matter what organization is running the market, when it comes down to it, the people keep the economy alive. The Triglav have been decreasing the quality of their products--watering down alcohol, reducing portions of produce in the markets--they thought the people would remain ignorant to it.”

Dottore mulled over his words, as far as he was aware, the Harbingers were also ignorant to the Triglav fiddling with the economy and goods. He wondered if the aristocrats were aware, working with them to shave some extra profits off the civilians. More irritated, he wondered if this was part of the reason why his funding was being affected.

“Except they realized,” Dottore mused, eyeing the man, trying to figure out how he became involved with it.

“Except I realized,” the man corrected sharply, giving Dottore another wary glance before he sat back at his desk. “I was the one that noticed what they were doing. I was raised on the streets of Novotroizov, just outside the capital, but I spent most of my time here-”

“I don’t care for your life story,” Dottore said. “Get to the point.”

The man smiled but it did not reach his eyes. “I had connections here in the city, it was not hard to siphon off unhappy contractors from the Triglav once they knew that they were being swindled by them and their families were suffering as a consequence.”

Dottore hummed to himself, “And where did you learn to read? Write? Understand economics?” he asked doubtfully, gaze drawing over the man as he dabbed the tip of his quill back into the dark ink.

The man hesitated, quill hovering over the parchment for a moment before he cleared his throat. “I worked at one of the higher-end red houses in the city, one that the aristocrats and the elites of the Triglav enjoyed to frequent. They run their mouths without care as to who might be listening. I learned much from them.”

Dottore almost smiled. Almost. The irony of the Triglav being the one to create their own competition was just a bit amusing to him. He rarely dealt with their elites personally but they were very quickly becoming a hindrance to his research and all hindrances must be dealt with.

Must be dealt with. Dottore looked at the man with a new light, an idea forming in the back of his head. The Ninth and Eleventh spots were now free, and so long as the Triglav controlled the economy, the Fatui’s money would at least partially be at the whims of the aristocrats that work with them and the organization's elites as the Fatui did not have their own bank…

“Well, as I see it, there are two options, I-” Dottore paused suddenly, a stinging feeling sharp across his cheek, as if he had been slapped, and a jolt of shock. Or, not him, his soulmate, he realized, gaze darting down to the thread on his thumb, because the man hadn’t moved from his desk, his knuckles white around the wood as he waited for the ultimatum. He forced himself to continue, voice tight, trying to mask the rising anger, “I can kill you, resolving this issue all at once, or we could try to find some use for you in our ranks.”

They were slapped, Dottore could feel echoes of the stinging sensation across his cheek, the shock that had run through his soulmate’s body, he could still feel the shock, now riddled with distress. Ten years old, he could barely constrain the rage pooling in his gut, he could barely control the way his mind brought him back to his own childhood with his parents and the unpleasant adults living in the village, who is slapping a ten year old? And with that much force? 

He could barely focus on the situation at hand--luckily, the man was still sitting in front of him, he hadn’t moved or spoken, suspicious of the options he was given, but Dottore needed to calm himself before he did start speaking so he could respond properly. 

But he couldn’t, and he felt so, so human because of it, vulnerable to emotions that were supposed to have been killed off a long time ago. He hated it. He hated it so much, his entire life--everything that he had built for himself felt as if it were crumbling. All of those years of teaching himself how to control each and every little emotion, all of those years learning how to seal away the unwelcome ones and channel them into something that was easier for him to process, they were wasted because the gods finally decided to curse him with this damned thread.

And then he felt it--an odd, foreign emotion curling in the depths of his stomach, something that was not of his own nor of his segments, something he hadn’t felt since the day he was chased out of his village. 

Fear. Fear coming from his soulmate. Was it because of whatever was going on where they were? Or could they feel his anger and it was scaring them?

Dottore didn’t know, and he hated not knowing, but he hated even more the fact that he somehow cared enough that it made him calm down when he hadn’t been able to make himself calm down on his own. 

“You don’t even know my name,” the man accused, but his tone was more hesitant, considering Dottore’s offer. Dottore forced his attention back to him, despite the way his thoughts lingered on the phantom pains against his cheek. “I don’t have a vision, I don’t-”

“Yes,” Dottore agreed. “I did not ask because I do not care to learn it--if your existence demonstrates itself to be useful to us, you will be given a new identity and a role to play in the coming war, you will have to leave your name, family and companions behind to take up the mantle… though I doubt that will be difficult for someone like you. Whether or not you have a vision is inconsequential--again, should you prove yourself, you’ll be given an even more potent version of one, one that does not have shackles of Celestia attached to it.”

There it was, Dottore thought to himself, letting out a huff of amusement once he caught the greed flash through the man’s expression. Hooked, the prospect of power would seduce even the most virtuous man, and he knew as soon as he stepped into this room that the man before him was no man of honor. 

“How will I know if I’ve proven myself?” the man asked.

“You will know,” Dottore said dismissively, turning on his heel to leave before another unexpected bout of emotion or pain swept over him. “Do remember who got you to your position, if this works out. I will need considerable funding for my research… and don’t bother trying to run, we will find you.”

“If everything has been discussed, I’ve had quite enough of tonight’s theatrics,” Pierro’s voice was cold and sharp as he rose to his feet, preparing to dismiss the Harbingers from their meeting.

Dottore waited, eyes drawing across the eight other Harbingers, waiting to see if any of them would speak up. The Balladeer was livid, having spent the majority of the meeting arguing with the Marionette and the Knave, with the Knave’s pet following along making disparaging comments. None of the rest of the Harbingers appeared to intend on saying anything, so just as Pierro was about to dismiss them, Dottore cleared his throat.

At once, all sets of eyes turned in his direction, stares with varying degrees of annoyance trained directly on him. Dottore only smiled thinly, “I would like to discuss an option for the empty seats… or one of them, at least.”

“Perhaps you’ve become slow of mind in your old age,” Scaramouche said sharply. Dottore raised his eyebrows beneath his mask, not even bothering to call out the hypocrisy. “We discussed this for nearly an hour already and you didn’t bother to give input once.”

“I had no interest in interrupting squabbling children,” Dottore replied dryly, turning his gaze back to Pierro, who looked exhausted as he sat back down at the head of the table.

“Speak, Dottore. How faired the mission against the organization usurping the Triglav?” 

“There was no organization,” Dottore said. “Only one man. I believe it to be prudent that we find a spot for him amongst our ranks. Perhaps not as a Harbinger… yet, but a chance to at least prove his worth.”

“One man?” Sandrone questioned, tone laced with disbelief.

“I find it hard to believe as well,” Pulcinella agreed, dark eyes piercing into Dottore. Dottore met his gaze, undeterred, annoyance tugged at his stomach--he hated being doubted. 

“I can assure you, mayor, that I would not waste our time with dubious information,” Dottore drawled, fingers tapping against the wood of the table. 

“I oversee the nation for our esteemed organization. I believe I would know-”

“Did you know that the Triglav were decreasing the quality of Snezhnayan and foreign products to make more of a profit off of the common folk?” Dottore interrupted, lips flat as his amusement dwindled. Pulcinella did not respond, and he took that as answer enough. “I see, so you do not know everything about the nation, do you, mayor?” 

“Make your point, Dottore, this meeting has lasted too long already. I have other matters to attend to,” Pierro said. Dottore was glad his eyes were hidden beneath the mask. 

“The man undermining the Triglav is an orphan, homeless, making by on nothing but connections he formed on the streets. Could you imagine what he would be capable of with resources to back him?” Dottore pressed. “We do not have the support of the people, we do not have an economy backing us, the aristocrats and the Triglav are in bed with one another, working together to sabotage us. It’s only a matter of time before this situation spirals into civil war, and Her Majesty is very much against that.”

“And you think one man will solve all of our issues?” Arlecchino asked, but she didn’t sound as doubtful as much as she did curious, watching Dottore carefully as she waited for him to respond.

He considered her words. It would be bold of him to claim that it would, as he had no reason to believe that this man would solve all of the internal issues that the Fatui were facing. He was promising, yes, but promise was just that--promise. Dottore had watched even the most promising minds in the Akademiya fall to ruin before they could make something great of themselves. 

But if they didn’t think he was confident in this, it would be shut down. And any chance at increased funding for his research would be shut down along with it, which is what it boiled down to for him at its core. He needed more funding. 

“I think he can solve a significant amount. The mayor clearly cannot handle internal affairs on his own. He doesn’t even know half of what’s going on right beneath his nose. The Triglav have been slighting the people of their goods and us of our money. Funding has been decreased-”

“Ah, of course,” Dottore’s eye twitched at the interruption, not even bothering to look at Scaramouche as he readied himself to respond to yet another snide comment from the Sixth. “That’s what it comes down to, your funding. How…”

Pain. Blinding pain shooting up through his hands and forearms, as if a million jagged rocks were digging into his palm and tearing through the flesh, as if he had taken a particularly bad fall and braced himself with his arms, drowning out the rest of the Balladeer’s comment. Were he a lesser man, he would have hissed at the sudden pain, maybe even flinched. Dottore was no lesser man, and he could not afford to give any sort of hint about the red thread tied around his thumb to the vultures perched around him who would take advantage of the weakness at any given moment. 

Instead, he inhaled, forcing himself to continue, annoyance becoming more severe with each passing day as this was now the second time he was interrupted during an important meeting because of his soulmate. 

“Yes,” Dottore said sharply. “Perhaps with better funding, we could make you into something greater than just a mere puppet. Your durability will only be of use for so long, and what will happen to you then? I can see the cracks already. You are not indestructible, Scaramouche.”

Scaramouche did not respond, and Dottore took the opportunity to continue.

“He is a commoner, an orphan, with enough connections throughout the people of Snezhnaya to displace the Triglav without any resources beyond his own mind and those connections,” Dottore continued. “You cannot convince me you do not see the potential this could bring us--nigh-complete autonomy from the Triglav and a wedge between the aristocrats and the people.”

“The consequences for if it fails…” Pulcinella trailed off. “We could be facing civil war far sooner than we’re ready for. The Triglav will not take kindly to us trying to unseat their monopoly… the aristocrats even less so.”

“We will win if it comes to war,” Arlecchino said. “What are they going to do, throw their gold coins at us?”

“No, they will throw our people at us,” Pulcinella responded coldly. “It’s not a matter of winning the war that’s the issue. Our military is dominant, in comparison to their forces. The issue is minimizing civilian casualties, which will not be possible without proper preparation. That could take years, decades. Her Majesty will not want us to antagonize while the people are at risk.”

“I will not go another year, much less decades, without proper funding,” Dottore said, poison dripping from his voice as he spoke. “We have been handed the opportunity to finally become the dominant power in Snezhnaya on a silver platter. We would be fools not to make the most of it. I am no fool, Pulcinella.”

“And if it fails?” The Captain spoke up for the first time, voice low. “Pulcinella is right, we cannot afford the backlash that this failure might bring us.”

“If it fails,” Dottore said tensely, “then I will kill him before it can be traced back to us.”

“Very well,” Pierro said after a moment of silence. “Bring him in, if he proves himself, we will consider replacing one of the two empty seats.”

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore’s eye twitched, gaze drawing from the parchment in front of him to the countertops across the room, where the leaky faucet dripped to the metal of the basin incessantly. He inhaled sharply as he forced himself to look back at the report, trying to figure out what exactly Theta was trying to get at with the conclusions of his residue research.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore exhaled through his nose, lips pressed together thinly as his gaze drew back to the faucet. Even in his rare moments of peace, where his segments were busy or asleep, the universe somehow found a way to disrupt him. 

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore rose to his feet suddenly, the metal legs of the chair he was sitting on scraping against the ground loudly as he grabbed the report and left his lab, intent on finishing the reading back in his own room. It was getting late anyway, the moon was rising, and it was only a matter of time before his little soulmate made their way to bed and forced their own fatigue onto him.

He made his way down the dark halls quietly--as if on cue, he felt those familiar tugs, three, each with half a second between them. Goodnight, his soulmate was telling him, and he only shook his head, glancing down once before turning his gaze back ahead. 

He would have to figure out how exactly he would integrate the boy from the city into the organization, and get him the resources he needed to actually be able to do something more than siphon off contractors of the Triglav. He didn’t know how though--it would have to be subtle so as to not draw the attention of their enemies until they were in the position to actually challenge them. If they found out that the Fatui were working under their noses to mess with the economy that the Triglav had built, they’d have a lot more issues to deal with than they’d like. 

Unfortunately, Dottore was never good at subtlety. 

If it were up to him, he’d simply remove the issue, just as he nullified extraneous variables whenever they rose to issue during his experiments. With the aristocrats and the Triglav out of the way, the Fatui could do as they pleased, Dottore could do as he pleased without all of the restrictions placed on him by the Jester… but alas, the Tsaritsa did not wish to draw the ire of her people any more than she already had, much to his displeasure.

Would one man be the change they needed to get the upper hand over the Triglav and the aristocrats? Dottore didn’t know and he despised not knowing, he hated uncertainty. He was a methodological man, a calculated one--he set plans in motion and saw them through to the end. He was able to map out all possible conclusions and plan accordingly, but he couldn’t for this, and he didn’t like it. Every time he thought of one possibility, another issue arose, and then another, and then another until the whole thing was spoiled and Dottore had to start from scratch. 

It felt more like a gamble than a thought out plan. Dottore hated gambling.

Was this the best course of action? Was this going to help him in the long run? What were the chances it even succeeded? 

Low, he determined. There was a good chance that even if the young man from the village was able to make something out of the resources he was given, he would still be forced to fall on his own blade if the situation took a turn for the worse with the other two parties. He didn’t particularly care for the fate of the man, but he had a feeling that if it got out that Dottore was the one behind the whole operation, his already depleted funding would turn to dust between his fingers.

Then you can’t let it get out, Dottore decided, stepping into his room--dark and cold with the candles and fireplace snuffed--which meant he would have to take out the man on his own before the Triglav and aristocrats could go about interrogating him… He would have to be ahead of the flow of information, and he had never been one to insert himself into webs of spiders and nests of snakes.

But, that’s assuming the worst case scenario, Dottore mused. Should all go well, the elites of the Triglav will be hung, and the aristocrats will finally be displaced from their position at the top. Dottore will have significantly increased funding, and they might very well finally have their Ninth or Eleventh seat filled again. 

As he reached the desk at the far corner of his room, Dottore’s chest felt heavy in a way that he had never felt before. Dottore exhaled carefully, placing down the report and taking a seat as he tried to figure out what was causing the strange feeling. Not his segments, he was confident that he had been able to seal off their emotions from his, and it certainly wasn’t his own emotions making him feel this way. 

And if that’s the case… 

He sighed, gaze drawing down to his thumb, then it must be you. 

As soon as he redirected his attention to where the thread was tied neatly around his finger, he felt the soft little tugs. Slow, uneven, he could practically see the pout spread across his soulmate’s unveiled face. It had been quite some time since the daily goodnight tugs, and from what he’d been able to tell over the past five years, his soulmate would always fall asleep soon after the goodnight.

What is the matter? he mused to himself, biting back another heavy sigh as he stared at the thread as if it would give him a verbal response. He realized, distantly, that he was wasting far too much time on this—he needed to finish figuring out first, what Theta had been trying to write and then, what it even meant—but he found his attention anchored on the thin thread, on the soft, slow tugs.

The sinking feeling in his chest was becoming even more intense, and it was sadness, yes, but there was something else. Not for the first time, Dottore damned himself for his inability to properly understand and process emotion.

It was cold, empty, but somehow oppressive and shadowy all at the same time. A part of him wondered if a child should even be feeling this way, but then he thought back to his own childhood—to the Kappa and Iota and Gamma segments—and something inside him twisted, dark and ugly as he considered what that might mean for his soulmate.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the rush of anger. He didn’t like the surge of protectiveness, the urge to shield someone he didn’t even know from the cruelty of the world as he did for his younger segments. He didn’t like that he couldn’t control it. He didn’t like that he couldn’t ignore it. He didn’t like it.

A stranger, the rational part of him hissed. They are a stranger, control yourself.

A stranger that is meant for you, a dangerous, dangerous part of him argued, voice smooth and alluring, a siren that could reel in even a sailor of the strongest willpower. Your fated.

Fated by the same gods who have cursed you a thousand times before, the harsher voice snapped back, grating in his mind, tearing through his head like grinding gears. This is another one of their cruel tricks, and you are playing right into their hands.

Dottore could feel his head aching and that void-like feeling was only getting worse. His chest felt like a gaping hole, like the heart of the abyss, and he felt like a puppet, whose strings were subject to the whims and emotions of a ten year old. 

Why do you feel like this? Dottore wanted to demand, let me fix it so I can return to my work in peace.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he couldn’t help but notice the way the tugs on the thread were becoming slower, less insistent… as if the person on the other side was giving up hope.

Is that what you want? he thought to himself, incredulity fogging his mind as he put together why his soulmate was feeling these emotions. His finger lifted on instinct, ready to test his hypothesis as he gave a small tug on the shared thread.

The change was instantaneous—sharp and sudden enough that Dottore felt whiplash as his heart leapt from his chest, mind doused in a sort of euphoria that he only ever felt when he made a breakthrough in his research.

Dottore shook his head, forcing himself not to roll his eyes when he realized that the wave of depression stemmed not from a situation happening in their life, but instead from a lack of attention.

He was annoyed at the disruption to his research, but with that ugly feeling gone—the coldness replaced by a very unfamiliar sense of warmth and a light, bubbly feeling in his chest, a childish sort of joy that he wasn’t sure he had ever experienced before—he could finally breathe again, the air felt fresh in his lungs and his mind felt clear. He was able to refocus on the report in front of him with an ease that he hadn’t had before.

Unfamiliar, he repeated to himself, red eyes drifting down to the thread one last time before he took advantage of the new concentration, but he wasn’t sure if it were entirely unwelcome.

reblogs appreciated!

[wvyld]

tgcf; Hua Cheng finds Fangxin Guoshi!Xie Lian before the massacre happens AU

it's been two, three years since the kidnapping attempt? Xie Lian's position in court is, ah, stable? his reputation as a mysterious and wise immortal master cultivator guy has settled, at least — who would have thought hiring that one very random street preformer to be Guoshi would work out so well!

someone paints a picture of the sword Fangxin Guoshi carries. Hua Cheng sees it and thinks; oh

if dianxia wants to raise the Yong'an crown prince, then dianxia is going to raise the Yong'an crown prince, no interruptions

Hua Cheng joins the Yong'an court by the way of money, forms a spy network through similar means, and becomes the good friend of Fangxin Guoshi because he really, really wants to and Xie Lian is very, very lonely

they spar a lot! it's very impressive. Lang Qianqiu finds it very cool

the entire court gossips about them. Xie Lian pretends not to know

Xie Lian finds out Hua Cheng is a ghost from Xianle which serves as a temporary explanation for what, exactly, is a ghost king doing hanging out in Yong'an.

they have a date in Ghost City — it ends with a scene with Xie Lian taking off his Fangxin Guoshi mask & Hua Cheng showing him his true form

Hua Cheng is like. Lang Qianqiu's uncle. he warms up to the kid, like, eventually, a little — he's not saying he likes him —

they have a Qi Rong fieldtrip! fun is not the way to describe it

Lang Qianqiu ascends

VERSION 1.

Lang Qianqiu ascends alone and, later, has a very awkward conversation with his Guoshi about maybe choosing his master (and uncle Hua Cheng) as Middle Court officials...? Guoshi? uh. why not?

XL: yeah so im a banished god. twice banished. for reasons! don't worry about it

HC: it might be possibly more awkard if you make me a Middle Court official

VERSION 2.

the three of them ascend together — the event is very destructive! Heaven ah. breaks? a little! but there's three of them, so that's. that's an explanation. for that.

it's a such lovely story — the crown prince of Yong'an, has ascended together with his two mentors after defeating the Green Ghost Qi Rong!

Xie Lian does not take off the mask. he just. doesn't! he means to, he thinks about it, he intends to do it, but enough time passes that it becomes awkward — Feng Xin and Mu Qing have introduced themselves to him! it would be just weird at this point...

Hua Cheng supports this wholly. Feng Xin and Mu Qing have no idea why this one guy in red hates them — well, there is that one guy in red who hates them, but there's no way in hell he ascended to Heaven!

Jun Wu realizes who Xie Lian is imidateley. he and Xie Lian have a conversation in which he agrees to allow for Xie Lian's stay in Heaven to remain anonymous — though he is a little preoccupied with stopping Heaven from falling down to really have time for plotting

a great opportunity for fun logistics-of-how-was-heaven-made-actually worldbuilding!

Jun Wu does not know who Hua Cheng is. Xie Lian doesn't tell him. it's funnier this way

He Xuan does know who, exactly, has ascended (again) and struggles not to laugh. he is one of the very few people well-informed enough to know how fucking hilarous this is

there are now three Calamities is Heaven

Lang Qianqiu is just happy his two mentors have ascended with him, really! very happy. Heaven seems to have been a little. uh. damaged. he'd hate to need to deal with it on his own!

the golden palace of lies collapses in some hilarous way as our heroes try to stop Heaven from falling down due to structual damage. Jun Wu's reveal speedrun

VERSION 3.

the three of them ascend together, but but it's known who Xie Lian & Hua Cheng are

divergence happens during the Qi Rong thing — Lang Qianqiu finds out about the stuff because Qi Rong figures it out

there's a whole scene — Xie Lian takes of his mask, all; yeah I'm the crown prince of Xianle, don't listen to my idiot cousin he's just terrible, he's always been terrible, your life isn't a lie — there are just shitty people in the world, sometimes, and, look, we stopped the tragedy, didn't we? — because in this AU they did; Hua Cheng has spies, the plot is over before it even begins, the massacre doesn't happen, Xie Lian does not kill Lang Qianqiu's father...

Qi Rong points out there is a fucking Devastation right there isn't he plotting things also?

Hua Cheng magic girl transformation into ghost king regalia, says some things about Xianle/Yong'an relations, and being a soldier while he was alive that mostly boil down to listen to what your Guoshi teaches, he's a wonderful amazing person the best in the world, the smartest, the most beautiful —

Lang Qianqiu finds that reassuring because that's just how Hua Cheng normaly acts, see, he's clearly here because he has a crush on Guoshi! it's not about revange or Yong'an at all, the man is just in love

Lang Qianqiu has some sort of a hero speech, very serious vow to be a good king and a good person and follow Guoshi's teachings! Xie Lian is very proud

they defeat Qi Rong with the power of friendship — and then the three of them fucking ascend

Xie Lian, no mask — Hua Cheng in ghost king regalia — Lang Qianqiu also there being the objectivley least interesting person in the room

every god in Heaven freakes the fuck out

it's a disaster, it's hilarous. He Xuan contacts Hua Cheng asking what the fuck he is doing. Hua Cheng just laughs

Xie Lian wants to leave, so bad — it feels like this situation would become a whole lot simpler if he and Hua Cheng weren't there, but he can't just leave Lang Qianqiu to this mess....

if Xie Lian leaves, so will Lang Qianqiu, really, if Heaven is to good for such an honorabile and good and just person as his Guoshi then maybe there is something wrong with Heaven (Hua Cheng is so proud)

HC: this is my second ascenshion and Guoshi's third ascenshion, so don't you worry, kid, we're old hands at this business

LQQ: I am worried for this reason exactly

Xie Lian has a whole thing trying to convince Lang Qianqiu to stay in Heaven even if they two do get kicked out for structual damage all I know it sucks but you're a prince, it would be very rude to tell the Emperor to fuck off —

LQQ: okay, so, how about this; if you two leave I cannot stay because your combined power wrecked Heaven so bad it might fall off the sky and I am not shouldering that debt on my own

XL: oh fuck I forgot about that

plot happens: heaven might fall down so we should deal with that! dealing with that is mostly a logistics thing. also, a war between realms might be around the corner.

somewhere in this there is a scene of Feng Xin snd Mu Qing trying to rescue Xie Lian & Lang Qianqiu from evil Hua Cheng's cluthes

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/29/2024

new boot goofin. also a great book for the cowboyblogger crew and TWO cat photos

listening

afterimage by JUSTICE and Rimon was on a spotify autogenerated dance playlist and it is So soothing to my brain. sometimes described as heavy metal disco, it itches the same brain scratch as daft punk's interstella 5555. comforting and familiar road trip music where the road trips are in spaceships with a sort of clunky engine thrumming away in the background. you know that extremely early ass o clock in the morning road trip feel where it's very pale and a little misty out and you're only sort of awake? i feel like this is a very different kind of road trip music animal than than late-night road trip music. it's pulling you out the door. it's for beginnings, not for very tired almost-ends.

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reading

thank you mackie. very reading heavy week. im tryign to redirect myself into library books instead of election doomscrolling and im trying to read more physical books bc i have a tremendous pile of shit i genuinely do want to read and almost none of it is on my phone. first we'll talk about Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, from randomly perusing the library stacks. really really really fucking loved this one.

Award-winning author of The Red Scholar’s Wake Aliette de Bodard comes for your heart with a compelling tale of love, duty, and found-family in an exciting new space opera that brings xianxia-style martial arts to the stars. Jockeying navigator clans guide spaceships through the Hollows: an area of space populated by the mysterious but deadly creatures known as Tanglers. When a Tangler escapes the Hollows for the first time in living memory, each clan must send a representative to help capture it—but the mission may be doomed and the hearts of two clan juniors may be in danger too.

first off: this isn't fucking found family. this is a group of coworkers. tor dot com loves to slap found family on anything gay.

politics is about control and inter-group dynamic politics are also about control. and grappling for control in your life when you grow up in a Young Leadership program. i really liked this, one of the least annoying examples of someone getting overstimulated and needing to lie down in a dark quiet room and how hanging out with some people does not impair rest and hanging out with some people is extremely extremely draining. the love interest is what if lee van cleef was a young vietnamese woman in the far future who can navigate faster than light travel.

very snappy little 160-pg novella that does not overstay its welcome. packs a genuinely surprising amount of worldbuilding and character work into its pages: i have a lot of trouble with ensemble casts post-Covid and keeping everyone straight (especially in hard copy form where I can’t easily search a book) but everyone is a fully formed person here and i had no trouble keeping everyone straight in my head. i will be asking my siblings to acquire a physical copy for me for christmas. i love a fucked up political mystery with spacewalks and space monsters.

the lead, nhi, reminded me a lot of friends at the table's brnine, a self-sacrificing perfectionist fish. hope that's useful information to all three of you i have bullied into listening to fatt

The Shabti by Megaera C. Lorenz. this finally came off my holds, hat tip to i think someone else's tuesdaypost? cannot immediately locate it. holler if it was you.

Can you flimflam a ghost? It’s 1934. Former medium Dashiel Quicke travels the country debunking spiritualism and false mediums while struggling to stay ahead of his ex-business partner and lover who wants him back at any cost. During a demonstration at a college campus, Dashiel meets Hermann Goschalk, an Egyptologist who’s convinced that he has a genuine haunted artifact on his hands. Certain there is a rational explanation for whatever is going on with Hermann’s relics, Dashiel would rather skip town, but soon finds himself falling for Hermann. He agrees to take a look after all and learns that something is haunting Hermann’s office indeed. Faced with a real ghost Dashiel is terrified, but when the haunting takes a dangerous turn, he must use the tools of the shady trade he left behind to communicate with this otherworldly spirit before his past closes in.

this keeps getting reviewed as cozy horror, which i do not agree with bc i hate the term and believe it oxymoronic. it is a fairly straightforward romance with paranormal shit happening in the foreground. a period piece not particularly for the folx end of the fag/folx gay book spectrum-- they happen to be gay but there's a lot of other shit happening. not a spicy romance as the tiktok girlies say. it is a period book that sort of elides over the worst parts of the 30s? eg there is no on-page or overt racism or antisemitism that the characters have to Confront. one of the lead's neighbors is a black nurse trying to start a NAACP chapter, but she's so fully fleshed out and such an enjoyable character it doesn't feel like the book is looking for moral points from modern readers. i also liked the general slow-build of the book and their relationship — i have no complaints about the intensity or pace of their relationship.

the one ding i have is that it is perhaps a touch too enthusiastic about period slang. it's fine when the two leads are talking to each other, especially bc their word choice is a large way they show their personality, but when there are more than two people in a scene it can grate a little for me. i do think the dialogue is generally the strong suit here, and the author particularly excels at two-person back and forths, so it’s not a frequent complaint.

i liked the contrast of the scam medium with the academic egyptologist, since many egyptologists were also scams. the scenes with the spirit are genuinely eerie, which is a very good contrast with the fairly straightforward, often sparse narration.

grudging respect for keeping a joke simmering on the back burner for four hundred pages before deploying it. this was a well-paced read i have no major complaints about.

i have to spin this book around in my brain and get a physical copy and flip back and forth and lot and make notes to myself in a separate notebook before i talk about this one here i think. same brain itch as a canticle for leibowitz.

i also read a bunch of comics but this section is already long enough goodbye

-

watching

the first episode of the currently airing penguin tv show! at my bestie's house bc she has an hbo max subscription from something, unfortunately it is an emotionally fraught very tense show and we're kind of full up on those so i will have to finish this on my own. at no point did i say to myself "whoa that's colin farrell". both the prosthetic and accent work are off the charts.

i do Not like a piece of media about the mob. i will stomach it for batman. it's really wild how the accents they've chosen for gotham and her suburbs make me so so so weirdly homesick. one of the locations is an early McMansion and my bestie and i said almost simultaneously "are we in fucking Cherry Hill???" a jersey noveau riche town infested with notable McMansions.

i am constantly chasing the high of s1 black sails where everyone is frantically scheming and falling all over them fucking selves. this gets pretty close! it's big budget prestige tv with the storytelling chops to match so far. one of my favorite comic runs is The Long Halloween, partially about the fortunes of the Maroni and Falcone crime families of Gotham. this is loosely following that, but deviates enough to surprise me, which i enjoy. there have been enough faithful adaptations of that comic run imo.

optimistic about the rest of the season! i have such low expectations for batman media that it's refreshing to get like a genuinely good pilot episode out of the franchise.

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playing

i have Got to find a new game to play that i already own. genshin is such a good podcast game but i need Something New. surely the 576047357649857689 games across five libraries will save me.

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making

so many things happened this week. cat neuter and constipation episode. helped take apart and put back together a children's' room. lot of running around.

crunchy! i almost left these docs at goodwill bc i don't have a super high opinion of the company or the quality of the boots. i have heard my ENTIRE life about how long-lasting they are and how people have had the same boots for years but i completely shredded a pair during eight months in 2019. like the soles were worn almost completely smooth to the point they were a slipping hazard, half the eyelets were broken, and the leather was genuinely disintegrating. that was one of the busiest and most active periods of my life (classes at other campuses both semesters, a summer in new hampshire, the beginning of the makerspace) but i did expect them to hold up a little better or a little longer. they only got to experience about a month and a half of salt at the beginning and were regularly cleaned. yes i did buy them straight from the company.

anyway. these extremely ugly docs industrials had almost all their tread and magically fit me. like the rest of me, my feet are large and wide and difficult to fit. they are by Far the ugliest shoes i have ever owned. however. they will be the boots i will wear for when i need to be okay about potentially destroying my footwear.

hit em with some saddle soap and polished the toes, i seem to be flat out of leather conditioner so i was only able to hit the heels and one tongue. the laces are in the warsh.

they're real leather and were twelve dollars and miraculously fit me. you know that quote about americans being temporarily embarrassed millionaires? i still, in many ways, think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed abled person. i am slowly giving up on the idea of another remote job, bc they seem to all be fake, and going harder on city and county jobs. while i would rather wear my beloved CAT steel toes with the nice padded cuffs any day of the week, maybe these will be good for tromping around somewhere inspecting something. would Love a weights and measures inspection job if their office would return my polite messages.

also ruby goes home tonight! goodbye ruby!

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

why is namek like that

i had a namekian specbio post drafted but along the way i got distracted with the namekian sky, so im just jotting down a bit of my thoughts about how a namekian solar system and planet atmosphere might work. most projections arent particularly stable, its no surprise they had a severe ecological disaster. we know namek has liquid water, and is an earth-like enough temperature for bulma to be comfortable there, so everything else is kind of bending around that. this super cool article by sean raymond talks about how you might make a no-night planet work. luckily no other planets are ever specified to exist in namek's solar system (to my knowledge) which makes this a lot easier! generally more stars = less planets, so im imagining that namek is the only planet in its solar system.

this is raymond's three star system diagram! in this model though, the planet actually does experience night, but only once every 600 years. im satisfied with this, as we get the information about namek "always having at least one sun in the sky" from dende, who's 8 years old, and likely just hasn't experienced or heard about namek's night yet. there's a lot of fun worldbuilding potential here! supposedly grand elder is only around 500 years old, and given that within his lifetime there was a catastrophe great enough to nearly extinct their species, it's possible that no living namekians know that their planet has a night time. but if they have, it's probably some huge legendary event, and is probably associated with porunga in some way since that's the only time the vast majority of namekians will ever experience a dark sky (do namekians have religion? holidays? questions for later...)

so COOL a three star system works! (as long as you allow for these substantial aus, anything for eternal sunlight..) however due to dragon ball rules we're working with a canon year of only 130 days. this is kinda problematic for a habitable planet like namek. shorter orbital period = closer to the (main) sun. given that there are already two extra suns shining light on this definitely liquid water having planet, this seems like we might have to do some magical hand-waving, which makes me sad because i find that boring. but its at least fun to think about what the magical logic is instead of just saying "eh it works because magic", so i wanted to try that! since the dragon balls operate on their own magical logic they might have a skewed definition of what a "year" can be classified as (and a year is pretty cultural too, right?). also, why do the dragon balls take a year to be able to be used again at all? (aside from plot reasons) like... what are they doing? with the dragon balls on earth, it was kinda easy to presume that they were "recharging" or that the dragon himself needed some kind of "rest", and that this process just so happened to take an earth year. the translations i could find were kind of vague on this, so im taking advantage of that vagueness. being about 1 au from the sun in this model, namek's "year" as defined by how long it takes to orbit its central star is about the same as earths (a bit boring, sorry) ! and the time it takes the other two objects in its system to make a full rotation around their shared center far far exceeds that, so i kind of don't think theres any justification to define a namekian "year" as 130 days other than that being the time it takes for the dragon balls to recharge, which makes perfect sense to me culturally! i mean, given that there are three suns, surely the amount of time it takes for your planets magical wish granting dragon to start working again would be a much more meaningful unit of measurement than the time it takes your planet to complete and orbit around your smallest sun (oh god what are namekian seasons like. probably fucked. another question for later). also from my wikipedia skimming it looks like alpha centauri's planet (assuming its a planet) has a similar orbital period to earth's too. its nice to have some real-life justification 👍

theres more to say about that but im moving on from this part for now. i just wanted to provide justification for a namekian year being however long it needs to be in order for namek to have three suns and still have liquid water.

i wanna talk a bit about the planet itself. namely: why the fuck is the sky green??

almost any other sky color could have some non-poison gas explaination except green. DAMMIT!! but its fine we can make it work. (also the plants are blue. which is actually a lot less problematic but i'll talk abt that later) im referencing this artifexian video for my information here btw 👍he gives a few ways that a sky could appear green but we kinda have to rule out all of them here except for something green being physically suspended in the air, because there just isnt any light/atmosphere combination that makes the sky look green to human eyes. since krillin is a human whos just so super wicked strong he can also fly, id be fine hand-waving breathing a green gas or dust for him and gohan, but. bulma is on that planet too... breathing away... also there's pretty clearly grass on this planet and like, brown earth. so mars like dusty skies dont make a lotta sense either. so i guess artifexian's sky-algae idea will have to work ! as horrifying as the implications are .... either these guys are just straight up breathing in green stuff all the time, or the algae is somehow suspended too high up to be inhaled. (also sky-algae would explain why the planet looks almost gaseous from space)

luckily bulma doesnt seem to be having any problems breathing it that green stuff, but like pollen allergies its easy to imagine that someone would be. which is kinda fun to think about actually. someone having an allergic reaction to the namekian sky, validating bulma's concern about breathable atmosphere would be a lot of fun... BUT I DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT FOR NOW !! i have other goals in mind. i just wanted to record this "namek's sky is green because theres guys in there" concept somewhere. also, three suns at various levels of rising at setting at all times, while not portrayed in the anime due to technical limitations, would almost CERTAINLY mean namek would have a really cool variety of sky colors! just all tinted green because of the sky algae. of course sky algae doesnt need to be green all the time, nor does it need to be in the sky (or alive) all the time. maybe the green skies are new post ecological disaster? very fun to imagine pre-guru namekian skies....

[goat-fanatic]

Wait I'm actually lowkey really interested in the whole vampire thing and like how it works and stuff in your creature AU!! Could you explain please? /nf :3

hopefully you mean the biology and society around vampires so i dont look stupid... but yeah.

so in order to be turned, one has to be bit, then consume/come in contact with the sires blood, then die and boom you wake up a vampire! very important fact of this universe is that creatures and humans have been assimilated for centuries atp, so society has been built around that. humans and creatures dont attack eachother, and theres laws in place to accomodate all the different species that are part of the world. so vampires dont need human blood to survive since there are whole shops, restaurants, cafes and bars that base their products on animal blood/synthetic blood, cuz lets be honest plain blood would get pretty boring fast. vampires dont take any nutritional values from human food but can still eat it, even tho it does taste slightly different to them. for that reason drinking from humans is looked down on as animalistic and crude, and without the humans consent its plain illegal. ofc there are humans who are into being a 'drink' and theres communities and clubs in place for that sort of a thing. theres also humans who want to get turned and can do so after a psych and medical evaluation and a bunch of legal paperwork for both the human and the vampire. but again turning someone without consent and agreements is a crime. after turning the vampires body stays in roughly the same state as at the time of death (fun fact, thats why gee is colder and paler than most vampires, cuz he bled out so at the time of death his body was almost bloodless). it kinda freezes, thats why thwy dont have pulses but if yoy cut them they still bleed. they also have wacky fast healing which is great for small injuries but kinda sucks for bigger ones (again thats where gees chronic neck pains come from. the skin over his bite wound scarred very fast but his muscles and nerves didnt catch up so theyre all messed up resulting in frequent pains yowch). the only thing i could not get a ligical reason for is vamp gee aging but hey its my universe so behold the sciency medical aging pill/treatment engenereed for vamps wjo want to age along with their loved ones! the aging is still a bit slower than the regular kind but its something.

silly facts include twilight and other 2000s' sexy vampire movies being the unhealthy vampire beauty standard that some of them hate and are working to abolish. makeup companies are selling sparkly lotions for that skin of a killer look. also yes they get irritated by garlic but its more like an allergy. also my vamoires have two sets of fangs. and more batlike ears. and nocturnal eyes so sunglasses are on high demand. their skin is sensitive to sun but doesnt exactly burn, more like very potent to sunburn. and theyre nocturnal but just like humans, they can have fucked up sleep scheduels and kinda train themselves to function in the day, altough most dont do it. vampires gather in clans which are usually a few families or completely non blood related ppl froming a tight community. theres some slight differences between turned and born vampires and there are vampire purists who only accept born vampires as real ones. theres also some more conservative humans who dont like turned vampires for abandoning their humanity.

i think thats most of the stuff that matters but feel free to ask abt anything bcs im serious when i say i put an unnecessary amount kf tought into the worldbuilding of this thing lmao

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 170 spoilers and thoughts that i am again late on because im literally in finals week and i'm actually supposed to be studying/working right now but i can't stop thinking about tged so here we are, and more below the cut

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okay okay i thiiink i liked this episode better than last weeks episode,,, concise but sweet and i liked the panels this week!!

ESPECIALLY THIS PANEL THE HOPE HE GETS WHEN HE REALIZES ARTANIS CAN HELP CIRCUMVENT THINGS UNTIL HE FIGURES IT OUT

his wide eyes and the light all over the panel im gonna sob WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH i love hope i love when characters regain hope its so AFLKJSDLKFJSLDKJFLSDF EEEE HEHEHEHE

also more snippets of credos!!! since we know for certain that the demon king of back then was also an isekai'd person, maybe they were a meteorologist, and that combined with the demon king's existing abilities? or possibly an environmental engineer?

there's a good range of jobs/career paths that involve weather forecast and farming specifically,,, there is such thing as an agricultural meteorologist? i wonder what degree that would need? i think that would definitely involve some kind of environmental science,,, we've probably got another stem kid on our hands!!!

i'll probably talk more in depth about that in a future post where i compile all the stuff we know about the prequel (the one i mentioned i'd make last week lol) (it's delayed bc i have finals aahh) but until then, back to episode yapping :3

ARTANIS IS SO SO CUTE WAAAHHHH

i'm actually very glad she's so willing to help,,, though i do wish we got to see more of her thought process/her history, i'm glad we got lyra's later in the ep as lyra's story worldbuilds + fleshes out their reasoning more which is good! but i wanna see artanis specifically,,, im curious abt the extent of her abilities!!!

also lloyd i think you just need to cut ur losses man HAHA

"you're so mean" javier says to the most selfless fucking bastard on this earth rn /lh theyre so silly

ALSO JAVIER BEING THE PROTAGONIST THAT HE IS AND LLOYDS REACTION LMFAOOO

we are getting silly expressions besides the gruesome ones which i am very happy about ~ lloyd looks so fucking serious here HAHAHA

ALSO LYRA'S . PAST EXPERIENCE WITH HUMANS IS SO SAD IM. GHGHGHHH AAAGHHH SHE JUST WANTED TO HELP THEM i think the timing and pacing of this was just right ohhh,,, her expressions im gonna bawl

i can't even begin to put into words how tragic and yet how unfortunately real this is. there are a lot of people in the world who let fears and rumors take control of their actions and it results in innocent people getting hurt simply for being who they are,,, lyra didn't even say a word! she offered food and they reacted with threats to kill her,,, ghghghghgh. i hope she enjoy her time on the frontera estate i hope that helps,,,,,

and lloyd reacting to this story by fucking BAWLING is LAKDJFLSKJDFSDF ITS EVERYTHING TO ME

"yeah i've heard this before" is sobbing his fucking eyes out yeah i know what you are you fucking EMPATH

and then him additionally saying that he wants to make sure these kinds of stories don't happen again WAAAGHHH WAAAHHHHH lloyd u know whats up i love you

ALSO ARTANIS LOOKS SO FUCKING DONE WITH HIS SOPPING WET ASS HAHA

lastly this final bit was fucking hilarious HAHAHAHAHA "oh so ur a demon king too,,, that explains a lot,,," "what." LMFAOOOOO

I LIKE LLOYDS FACE A LOT IN THIS PANEL HAHAHAHAHA

i like that this episode chose for more deadpan/lowkey angry expressions instead of the usual exaggerated ones its a good change of pace,,, YAY

anyway that's all from me this week!!! see y'all next time heehoo

[huntershowl-moving]

Positivity hour! Tell us about your favourite RP partner and your favourite thread! <3

OOH! i love positivity hour! cut for length because WORDY BITCH DISEASE STRIKES AGAIN APPARENTLY!

i don't think i could pin down just one favorite because i'm so incredibly lucky to have so many amazing partners during this sephblog golden age. this is only a few of the ppl who have touched my presence here and live in my brain rent free rn, i wish i could remember all of them but a shortlist will have to do o7

i will shoutout @harerazor and @tewwor for being my OGs, my rp besties, the truest mfs who always stick around through my year-long (sometimes years-long) absences and whenever i come back to discord or the dash, it's like we never left <3 AND for following me into my hyperfixation zones omg. writing windbreaker and jjk muses would be so much more lonely without u two in my life. <3

on the topic of OGs, @spiritcrown, @never-surrender and @bcdomens are the CREW!!!!!!!! THE FIRST PPL I EVER WROTE WITH AND SOME OF MY FAV FOLKS ON THIS HELLSITE you guys are the best. ily. connecting with u guys again felt like coming home.

@favorskill has ascended past the title of rp partner and into the title of friend. rio is one of my favorite people ever, genuinely, he's so cool and so skilled with writing/worldbuilding/watching his DICE MAKING SKILLS GROW has been so amazing too??? i care u so much rio. biting u. even when my brain is hopelessly deep in the fixation hole i am thinking about u and ur muses always <3

also shoutout to my wife @vsagis / @theixth (bc ik uve been on this one today) for just being like??? overall such a lovely person and an amazing writer??? our main dynamic is so deep and expansive we're starting to develop an extended universe for them. i love them i LOVE THEM TO DEATH. alex u match my freak ily i hope i get this job so we can hang out irl <3

speaking of matching my freak, @koseigu and i get along like a house on fire, and i don't think the world is truly ready for us. the more dynamics we develop, the more dangerous we become. everything we do with geto & sephsho ROCKS and i am terrified (excited) to see where seph and sukuna lead us in our newest explorations. we get up to some absolutely nasty (hot) shit with our creatures and it's always an amazing time. hehe

@chaoslulled hol you are so so so special to me. i owe u so many things and im so sorry omg but i literally never stop thinking about our threads & dynamics they're soooo good. i think you're one of the only partners i've actually been able to maintain Main Threads with over a long period of time?? there's something about the way we write together that makes that actually work in my brain which is super unusual JSDKJDHJKD i'm not complaining though, i love it so much. also your ocs are spinning around in my head on a daily basis, especially char because seph, chiaki and geto all like her very much. <3 ALSO. U ARE THE REASON I WRITE GETO. I HATE IT HERE HE WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE HOW COULD U DO THIS TO ME (affectionate). ur satoru is always the one he and seph come back to first because he is the original.

@quillheel and i have been mutuals for a while but didn't start regularly chatting until recently, and geto has been keeping me hostage in our 1x1 server over the last week or so, it's a problem, please help me. please. my crops are dying. also ur my current record breaker on "most fucked up start to an rp dynamic" with sukuna and rusa and im gonna be real i think u might hold that title for a while KJSDHIUSDHSJDHSJKDHJSKDH

@hinodae gray i think i would follow u to the ends of the earth. our little accidental threads have been some of my favorites ever, and i love to PIECES every one of our ship dynamics so far. thank u for being just as much of a slut for ships as i am, i feel like we match each other's energy and vibe so well!! TUMBLR BETTER UN-SHADOWBAN U SOON OR IM GONNA THROW HANDS >:'O

@eraserisms and @rcguish u two are like a package deal in my brain. D.A., the fact that we exist on the same chef wavelength always makes me so happy. i love seph and shota so much, they make me Hurt in all the best ways and i'm lookin forward to getting more into todoroki's voice so we can keep building out shota becoming his dad i mean mentoring him! and rys!!! i know ur absolutely going thru it rn so we haven't been talking as much lately, but i'm still just as feral for our dynamics as ever. seph and shouta's broken friendship. shou and orion's blossoming romance. seph has so many feelings and thoughts about silver that i don't even know how to articulate but that might need its own separate post. blowing u kisses.

lastly but not leastly, @gomannakami we only connected recently but we've already got this absolutely TRAGIC AND BEAUTIFUL set of pairings going on. satoru and chiaki are so stupidly cute and so so sad. seph and suguru are still in the beginning stages but i LOVE writing them sort of dancing around each other, the mutual pining is so spicy and delicious.

AS FOR THREADS!!!!!

ooh. hm. fuck. i think my first thought is always gonna be my longer-running threads with @chaoslulled — the one that stands out the most in my mind rn is the thread where satoru found seph on the brink of collapse after a hellhound kill. it was only the second thread we ever wrote together, and i ACUTELY remember how nervous i was that it was too intense and i was gonna scare hol away with it because that's happened so many times before. SJDHKSJHD

another one that comes to mind is one of my first threads with @tewwor's litho, which started with the simple inbox prompt "can't sleep?" and ended up turning into one of our longest threads to date and spiraling out into the longest fucking slowburn of this blog's career. i loved it. i'll never stop thinking about that apple.

[fountainpenguin]

hello! I've been reading your fop fanfics for around a week now, and I wanna say that your worldbuilding has some of the most impressive ones I've ever seen for a preexisting IP. you made excel sheets, charts, indepth character bios including species and timelines and etc etc ITS SO GOOD Ive been going crazy over them. also as someone who's been enjoying the pixies recently and planning stuff with them with my own oc story, your worldbuilding with them is so awesome. so good. I really really like it MOSTLY BECAUSE IM PIXIE-HEADED RIGHT NOW BUT YOUR FICS OF THEM AND EXPLANATIONS AND SPECIES BIO KEEPS ROTATING IN MY MIND I LOVE IT. I LOVE THE PIXIES!!!!! I LOVE THOSE SILLY BLOCK CREATURES to the point I've been rereading your class overview of them three times. I love you pixies. also I may have taken inspirations from your species bio or have it in my mind subconsciously while writing my own pixie oc (and more yet to come) like their defining character traits, how they do relationships, etc etc. nothing too big ofc but it's really great that it imprinted on my brain

I'm still a newcomer here and yet to know more in-depth about your universe, but with the amount of posts you have made, I believe I'll be sticking around for more :) thank you!

Thank you!!! I'm glad you like my 'fics and posts. Many, many, many hours of work have gone into my worldbuilding over the last 9 years and I appreciate your appreciation!

I'm glad the Pixies are getting more acknowledgement these days! They're my favorites... I'm happy to see them get a boost in love even though they didn't make it into New Wish Season 1 <3

Here's a Sigfried for you- I like his tie clip :)

I like his fancy crown hat too.

Thanks again for your kind words!

Links for anyone interested in checking out my FOP work & trying to find their preferred way to explore:

#FAIRIES! - My blog tag for FOP content

📕 Easy AO3 Series Navigation - Customize your reading by subscribing to the arcs / characters you like

✨ Worldbuilding Sideblog Masterpost - Lore galore!

🟪 Class Overview: Pixies - Mentioned in this ask

☁️ Cloudlands AU Guide

🌃 City Lights AU Guide

🗄️ Reedfilter Rules AU Guide

🌈 'Fic summaries page

🚂 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash summaries page